Future Scenarios of Water Security: A Case of Bogotá River Basin, Colombia

Abstract

Bogotá is the largest city in Colombia, it is the capital district and 20% of the Colombian population live there. Public reports have suggested that the vulnerability of water supply system in this city is high, mainly because of inadequate water resource management, climate variability, and population growth. This paper proposes a computational model to assess the long-term effects of delays in water plants and droughts on the water security of the Bogotá river basin, Colombia. The computational model is based on systemic approach, in particular, water planning on the supply side is studied in detail. The main conclusion that can be drawn is that under a Business as Usual (BAU) scenario, the study area will experiment a risk of water security. To avoid a risky situation for water security, the construction time of water plants should be lower than 9 years. The contribution of this work is to raise the awareness of policy makers about the risk of shortage.